Was Hannibal the greatest battlefield general of antiquity?

Elric said:

You can't say that Wellington "failed" as a strategist. He won both the peninsula campaign and the 1815 campaign. Still I agree that those campaigns may not be as impressives as some other Napoleon's campaigns, and I don't think that many here will argue that Wellington spanish capmpaign was a masterpiece...

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His other campaigns have nothing to do with it, I'm talking specifically about 1815, where he failed to realise Napoleon's intentions and suffered heavily for it. Luckily the Prussians were smart enough after Ligny to eventually repair the situation.

Elric said:

Scipio won, indeed, and you can't split his overal performance as a strategis from the roman final success. He, in some way, outmanoeuvre Hannibal. Hannibal failed to make Rome surrender, and, finally, to protect Carthage. I have no problem saying Hannibal was one of the finest tactician of History, Cannae is a masterpiece, but I can see why one will debate the fact that he wasn't a greatest strategist than Scipio.

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How did Scipio, "outmaneuver" Hannibal? Ah, the hindsight argument, which basically follows as "Hannibal should have known it wouldn't have worked." How was Hannibal supposed to know that Rome would perform an unprecedented in history act of survival and levy over 200,000 citizens in the field? Conversely, Carthage was structurally a lot weaker than Rome, and easier to take down. Finally, Hannibal's operations in Africa hardly demonstrate anything other than operational and strategical genius, if not also tactical genius at Zama.

Mangekyou said:

That's a bit of a straw man. Wellington won the peninsular war and his campaigns moved forward until the end of the war. His strategy eventually won.

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It's odd to imply that Wellington's "strategy" held on throughout his career, whatever that means. My point is that he completely misunderstood Napoleon's intentions, as a result he was late at Quatre Bras and Ligny, and he had one full corps protecting his line of supply that could have been used. In essence, he was a general of the Frederickan school. When he learned Napoleon was advancing, his immediate thoughts were that Napoleon was trying to push against his supplies, which is completely ridiculous considering Napoleon's track record. Why would a general like Napoleon drive Wellington towards Blucher? Especially considering Napoleon's time schedule and having half the troops of his enemy in the local theater of operations, it was a blunder by Wellington, who also delayed deploying his troops - scores of historians have attacked Wellington's strategic actions in the Waterloo campaign.

Mangekyou said:

Scipio almost did a mirror campaign of Hannibal's. He cleared and secured Spain from Carthaginian possession, Much like Hannibal started off in Spain.

He then moved off to Carthaginian soil much like Hannibal did on Italian soil. Hannibal campaigned on Italian soil a lot longer, but his territory and control shrank as the Romans adapted, because the war was prolonged He couldn't find the right allies to fight alongside him or rip the Italian states away from Roman loyalty. Scipio was able to secure Massinissa and his minions who provided him excellent support.

The other part of the strategy was getting Hannibal recalled from Roman soil, which was done successfully, and then defeated Hannibal, winning the war, more or less.

Scipio learnt alot from Hannibal and may not have the legacy he did unless Hannibal existed. However, Scipio was still an excellent strategist, even better than perhaps Hannibal.

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It doesn't really feel like Hannibal had any other choice but to take the war to Italy. Even then, how was he supposed to know the unprecedented performance the Romans would make despite being stripped of its allies and losing multiple armies? Hannibal destroyed a 16 legion army at Cannae, and the Senate simply levied replacement legions. The whole campaign was basically preemptive, Carthage had no hope of defending Sicily and Spain and Africa simultaneously, and sooner or later Roman armies would be in Africa. Carthage's structure was a lot more fragile than Rome's, the citizens didn't even fight except in the direst of circumstances.

Rome had the resources and the minds to adapt to Hannibal, because their breaking point was ridiculously hard, if not impossible, for Hannibal to reach. On the other hand, Carthage was relatively weak internally, it didn't have any more generals, it had limited money and surely couldn't replicate Rome's ability to simply levy citizen armies at will. Scipio was great, but Hannibal did just as much, if not more than Scipio - the only reason why he failed was because Rome had the resources Carthage didn't - more generals, more money, greater mobilisation capabilities, greater navy etc. Ask how many Roman generals were distinguished in the Second Punic War, and compare those to that of Carthage? Marcellus, Nero, Scipio and Fabius are the top ones. Carthage? Hannibal, anyone else is a stretch tbh.

The basic point is that without Hamilcar and Hannibal, the conflict between Rome and Carthage would have been dramatically different. Carthage relied on these two men, along with moderately large (but strategically small) mercenary armies. Rome was basically a juggernaut, and I honestly feel that even if Hannibal had won Zama, there was no option for victory for Carthage, even at the start of the war. There is really, in my mind, no situation where Carthage wins against Rome, it just wasn't possible. Rome was always going to win by nature of things, imo.

Hannibal was placed in an [nigh] impossible situation, Scipio in a possible one. Nor did Scipio have to command a multi-ethnic mercenary army on enemy soil for years and years and years. Scipio definitely introduced greater maneuverability, but that had already been achieved under Hamilcar and Hannibal. I could probably accept these two as equals in strategy, but if I had to pick, it'd be Hannibal. His circumstances seem to have been far worse off than Scipio's. Hannibal had to operate against Fabius and Marcellus. Carthage couldn't put up much effective resistance against Scipio - it had no generals smart enough to hold him up. But Rome did for Hannibal. To an extent of course, it's sort of pointless to debate. Circumstance dictates a lot of things. Maybe that's just how I personally view things, hence my liking of Philip who developed the strategical, tactical and operational methods that Alexander used so well in Asia. Hannibal basically winged it, Scipio mirrored, is how I see it.

In relation to the OP: I actually put Hannibal above Alexander as a tactician because of Zama, not Cannae. If we took away Hannibal's last campaign, he would be placed under Alexander on my list.

I would argue that Zama was probably equivalent to Cannae also.

Duke Valentino said:

I would argue that Zama was probably equivalent to Cannae also.

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Why?

Zama came down to plan B ultimately, where Cannae played out like a fine art and everything clicked Zama was scrappy on both sides and went to the wire.

Zama wasn't a tactical masterpiece unlike the other set pieces because Hannibal didn't decide to fight there, he was forced to fight there. Whereas for Cannae and Traismene he was the designer and the executioner, at Zama he was reacting to Scipio, hence, while not doubting the genius of Hannibal, Canne and Traismene were without a doubt a superior work of art.

Duke Valentino said:

In relation to the OP: I actually put Hannibal above Alexander as a tactician because of Zama, not Cannae. If we took away Hannibal's last campaign, he would be placed under Alexander on my list.

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I always thought Alexandre planning and manoeuvre at Gaugameles was very smart; could you explain how Hannibal Zama's planning was better (I just speak here about tactical skills in the conduct of the battle)

Belisarius said:

Was Hannibal the greatest battlefield general of antiquity?

No.

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Agreed. Scipio was by far a better General than Hannibal, and he only fought Hannibal at great advantage due to his own strategic plans coming to fruition. Hannibal was certainly great, probably in the top 5 of the ancient world, but at the very least he was below Scipio and Caesar. Hannibal himself held Scipio in the highest regard, believing that if he had defeated Scipio he would have been the greatest general up to that point in history, even above Hannibal's own heroes Alexander and Pyrrhus.

Hannibal made some serious strategic mistakes from the start by fundamentally failing to understand Roman culture (their unwillingness to surrender or negotiate even after Cannae) and failing to manage his political allies in Carthage. Scipio played the role of frat boy player to the Carthaginian Senate's prom queen, forcing Hannibal to come to him and fight on his terms with an army that was but a shadow of its Cannae glory. It was Hannibal's fundamental misunderstanding of Roman culture that played a major factor in his defeat: had Rome been more like the Hellenistic Greeks, the war would have been over in 216 BC. But like the Britons who claim Roman history as part of their own, Rome pulled a "Darkest Hour" over 2,000 years before Operation Sealion was conceived.

Toltec said:

Or a poorly organised disaster that lost half the men.

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I second this skepticism at the "brilliance" of Hannibal crossing the Alps. He lost half his men. The genius is that he achieved nearly complete strategic surprise on the Romans, and it would have been complete strategic surprise had Scipio's father not received word of Hannibal's movement while passing Massilla. The actual crossing of the Alps destroyed half his army.

mariusj said:

Why?

Zama came down to plan B ultimately, where Cannae played out like a fine art and everything clicked Zama was scrappy on both sides and went to the wire.

Zama wasn't a tactical masterpiece unlike the other set pieces because Hannibal didn't decide to fight there, he was forced to fight there. Whereas for Cannae and Traismene he was the designer and the executioner, at Zama he was reacting to Scipio, hence, while not doubting the genius of Hannibal, Canne and Traismene were without a doubt a superior work of art.

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I don't see how Zama was "scrappy" per-se. If you mean that Hannibal's plan worked at Cannae, but didn't at Zama, sure, but the circumstances between the two battles were extremely different. At Cannae, Hannibal had a superior army and faced a tactically inferior force of citizen militia commanded by two mayors; at Zama he faced an army superior to his own in cavalry and at least to an extent in infantry, and was commanded by a general equal to Hannibal himself. That Hannibal came close to victory in the latter set of conditions to me deserves more attention than the former set of conditions. That isn't to disregard the importance of Cannae as a concept - though even Napoleon, who was an avid reader of military history still pressed the maxim that one should never attempt to surround a larger army with a smaller one, but rather concentrate and smash a flank. I think this is because Napoleon realised that Cannae was under very specific circumstances. The Carthaginian army, with its officers trained by Hamilcar, its troops heavily experienced and led by Hannibal himself was capable of executing what would usually be considered a stupid attack against a larger force. The Roman army was incapable of doing anything but to move forward once deployed for battle, the maniples were yet to develop tactical independence on a small scale, and the cavalry advantage was clearly Hannibal's. So in this particular instance, we could say that this act of surrounding a large army with a smaller one worked. If we look at other examples such as Caesar's Dyrrachium, Caesar failed because he was facing another Roman army and another Roman general of his own caliber, Pompey. On the converse, if we look at Gaugamela, Alexander had a tactically superior army and was probably outnumbered, but he was inferior in the number of his cavalry, and therefore was forced to concentrate on a flank or portion of the enemy line, rather than to surround them.

I would disagree that Hannibal didn't decide to fight at Zama. He attempted to, as Napoleon did in 1815, to force himself between the two enemy corps, to prevent them from joining up. However, Scipio masterfully moved into the interior and managed to link up before Hannibal could accomplish this. Hannibal then decided to engage in battle, it was his decision.

Elric said:

I always thought Alexandre planning and manoeuvre at Gaugameles was very smart; could you explain how Hannibal Zama's planning was better (I just speak here about tactical skills in the conduct of the battle)

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I'm not sure if I'm comfortable in asserting that Zama > Gaugamela from a tactical perspective. But I do give it a lot more attention than most because Hannibal was actually on a lot more even terms. Basically, Hannibal's use of the elephants was impressive and masterful in my eyes.

frogsofwar said:

Agreed. Scipio was by far a better General than Hannibal, and he only fought Hannibal at great advantage due to his own strategic plans coming to fruition. Hannibal was certainly great, probably in the top 5 of the ancient world, but at the very least he was below Scipio and Caesar. Hannibal himself held Scipio in the highest regard, believing that if he had defeated Scipio he would have been the greatest general up to that point in history, even above Hannibal's own heroes Alexander and Pyrrhus.

Hannibal made some serious strategic mistakes from the start by fundamentally failing to understand Roman culture (their unwillingness to surrender or negotiate even after Cannae) and failing to manage his political allies in Carthage. Scipio played the role of frat boy player to the Carthaginian Senate's prom queen, forcing Hannibal to come to him and fight on his terms with an army that was but a shadow of its Cannae glory. It was Hannibal's fundamental misunderstanding of Roman culture that played a major factor in his defeat: had Rome been more like the Hellenistic Greeks, the war would have been over in 216 BC. But like the Britons who claim Roman history as part of their own, Rome pulled a "Darkest Hour" over 2,000 years before Operation Sealion was conceived.

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frogsofwar said:

I second this skepticism at the "brilliance" of Hannibal crossing the Alps. He lost half his men. The genius is that he achieved nearly complete strategic surprise on the Romans, and it would have been complete strategic surprise had Scipio's father not received word of Hannibal's movement while passing Massilla. The actual crossing of the Alps destroyed half his army.

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The supposed "meetings" and conversations between Hannibal and Scipio seem pretty fake and fantastical to me. It's also somewhat ridiculous to claim that Scipio was a "far greater" general than Hannibal. Moreover, your analysis of Hannibal's supposed strategic shortcomings are dripping in hindsight.

Duke Valentino said:

I don't see how Zama was "scrappy" per-se. If you mean that Hannibal's plan worked at Cannae, but didn't at Zama, sure, but the circumstances between the two battles were extremely different. At Cannae, Hannibal had a superior army and faced a tactically inferior force of citizen militia commanded by two mayors; at Zama he faced an army superior to his own in cavalry and at least to an extent in infantry, and was commanded by a general equal to Hannibal himself. That Hannibal came close to victory in the latter set of conditions to me deserves more attention than the former set of conditions. That isn't to disregard the importance of Cannae as a concept - though even Napoleon, who was an avid reader of military history still pressed the maxim that one should never attempt to surround a larger army with a smaller one, but rather concentrate and smash a flank. I think this is because Napoleon realised that Cannae was under very specific circumstances. The Carthaginian army, with its officers trained by Hamilcar, its troops heavily experienced and led by Hannibal himself was capable of executing what would usually be considered a stupid attack against a larger force. The Roman army was incapable of doing anything but to move forward once deployed for battle, the maniples were yet to develop tactical independence on a small scale, and the cavalry advantage was clearly Hannibal's. So in this particular instance, we could say that this act of surrounding a large army with a smaller one worked. If we look at other examples such as Caesar's Dyrrachium, Caesar failed because he was facing another Roman army and another Roman general of his own caliber, Pompey. On the converse, if we look at Gaugamela, Alexander had a tactically superior army and was probably outnumbered, but he was inferior in the number of his cavalry, and therefore was forced to concentrate on a flank or portion of the enemy line, rather than to surround them.

I would disagree that Hannibal didn't decide to fight at Zama. He attempted to, as Napoleon did in 1815, to force himself between the two enemy corps, to prevent them from joining up. However, Scipio masterfully moved into the interior and managed to link up before Hannibal could accomplish this. Hannibal then decided to engage in battle, it was his decision.




I'm not sure if I'm comfortable in asserting that Zama > Gaugamela from a tactical perspective. But I do give it a lot more attention than most because Hannibal was actually on a lot more even terms. Basically, Hannibal's use of the elephants was impressive and masterful in my eyes.






The supposed "meetings" and conversations between Hannibal and Scipio seem pretty fake and fantastical to me. It's also somewhat ridiculous to claim that Scipio was a "far greater" general than Hannibal. Moreover, your analysis of Hannibal's supposed strategic shortcomings are dripping in hindsight.

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If it was hindsight, it was hindsight available to Hannibal as well: Pyrrhus' failed to conquer Rome for very similar reasons. Given that Hannibal was aware of Pyrrhus, he could have benefited from his failure.

frogsofwar said:

If it was hindsight, it was hindsight available to Hannibal as well: Pyrrhus' failed to conquer Rome for very similar reasons. Given that Hannibal was aware of Pyrrhus, he could have benefited from his failure.

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Pyrrhus failed for very different reasons. For one, Pyrrhus wasn't even committed to Rome. He had multiple projects and his attention was always required elsewhere.

frogsofwar said:

I second this skepticism at the "brilliance" of Hannibal crossing the Alps. He lost half his men. The genius is that he achieved nearly complete strategic surprise on the Romans, and it would have been complete strategic surprise had Scipio's father not received word of Hannibal's movement while passing Massilla. The actual crossing of the Alps destroyed half his army.

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If Hannibal does not put the Romans on their back foot with his descend from the Alps, that would mean you expect him to actually fight his way to Italy? That's not very much a genius idea now is it.

Also losing half of his man is likely an exaggeration if you are suggesting that he lost half of his man crossing the Alps, he lost less than half. And even then, much of these were to something other than battles.

There are plenty of things Hannibal did that wasn't that brilliant, but the movement and descend onto Italy was absolutely one, he not only put the Romans on the back footing, he also forced the attention from elsewhere to the home peninsular, and he made Rome dance to his tune.

frogsofwar said:

If it was hindsight, it was hindsight available to Hannibal as well: Pyrrhus' failed to conquer Rome for very similar reasons. Given that Hannibal was aware of Pyrrhus, he could have benefited from his failure.

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I fail to see what relevance Pyrrhus has here. Hannibal wasn't seeking to "conquer" Rome, or even destroy it, rather he planned to wage a war of attrition in order to isolate Rome from her allies and force her onto terms favourable to Carthage. This is the exact opposite of Pyrrhus, who was a student of the school of Philip and Alexander, and sought to fight a war of annihilation.

Duke Valentino said:

I fail to see what relevance Pyrrhus has here. Hannibal wasn't seeking to "conquer" Rome, or even destroy it, rather he planned to wage a war of attrition in order to isolate Rome from her allies and force her onto terms favourable to Carthage. This is the exact opposite of Pyrrhus, who was a student of the school of Philip and Alexander, and sought to fight a war of annihilation.

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After battles like Heraclea, it was obvious that the Romans could withstand massive losses in battle (15,000/45,000, 33% of the army) and keep throwing more legions at a potential invader. And if Hannibal's intent was to wage a war of attrition, the only way this would have been possible would have been to convert far more city-states than he did. Support for Hannibal was, at the very best, either fleeting or lukewarm outside southern Italy.

As Niall Ferguson points out in The Pity of War, the main indicator of victory is the willing surrender of enemy troops. It was clear that most of the city states (and Roman armies) were unwilling to surrender. When an enemy and their allies are unwilling to give in, a war of annihilation is really the only option. Without sparking another, very off-topic, debate, Id point to the "conventional wisdom" regarding the nuclear bombing of Japan: their unwillingness to surrender meant we literally had to nuke them into submission...(and maybe with the help of advancing Soviet troops).

In short, Hannibal fatally misjudged the Roman character while Scipio played the Carthaginian Senate better than Bismarck played Napoleon III.

Delbruck on the Pyrrhic War:

But the accounts of the Pyrrhic War, even though they go back to originally valid witnesses, have come to us third-hand, so that there is so little we can do to test their sources and to separate them from the accompanying fables and legends that none of the facts may be considered as completely reliable.

Warfare in Antiquity, 297.

The Battle of Heraclea is so confused and out of touch with reality that we can't even retell is with even some level of consistency. I thought the casualties for the Romans in that battle ranged from 7,000 to 15,000, according to the sources? The following battles are even more difficult to make out.

The thing you're forgetting is that if Rome didn't happen to follow Fabius and his strategy, Hannibal may well have won over many of Rome's allies, or at least more than he did during the actual war. But he did get Capua, the second largest city in Italy, to come over to him, which is impressive in of itself. Hannibal certainly wasn't waging a war of annihilation, either.

Hannibal was obviously aware of some of the potential of Rome in its heartland, but he also knew about the tactical superiority of his officers and soldiers, and that there was realistically no other option in the war but to attack Italy if any real settlement in Carthage's favor was to be achieved.

It was only after a tremendous amount of time that the Romans, or rather, Scipio, finally adjusted the Roman army to a tactical flexibility comparable to that of Hannibal's army. And this was at the end of the war. Of course Scipio is going to do a lot better when Carthage has been at the war for such an extended period of time, which was already structurally weak compared to the relationship between Rome and its allies. It didn't levy citizens, it relied on mercenaries. And of course Scipio is going to do a lot better with the lessons of Hannibal's war tucked under his belt.

Duke Valentino said:

Delbruck on the Pyrrhic War:

But the accounts of the Pyrrhic War, even though they go back to originally valid witnesses, have come to us third-hand, so that there is so little we can do to test their sources and to separate them from the accompanying fables and legends that none of the facts may be considered as completely reliable.

Warfare in Antiquity, 297.

The Battle of Heraclea is so confused and out of touch with reality that we can't even retell is with even some level of consistency. I thought the casualties for the Romans in that battle ranged from 7,000 to 15,000, according to the sources? The following battles are even more difficult to make out.

The thing you're forgetting is that if Rome didn't happen to follow Fabius and his strategy, Hannibal may well have won over many of Rome's allies, or at least more than he did during the actual war. But he did get Capua, the second largest city in Italy, to come over to him, which is impressive in of itself. Hannibal certainly wasn't waging a war of annihilation, either.

Hannibal was obviously aware of some of the potential of Rome in its heartland, but he also knew about the tactical superiority of his officers and soldiers, and that there was realistically no other option in the war but to attack Italy if any real settlement in Carthage's favor was to be achieved.

It was only after a tremendous amount of time that the Romans, or rather, Scipio, finally adjusted the Roman army to a tactical flexibility comparable to that of Hannibal's army. And this was at the end of the war. Of course Scipio is going to do a lot better when Carthage has been at the war for such an extended period of time, which was already structurally weak compared to the relationship between Rome and its allies. It didn't levy citizens, it relied on mercenaries. And of course Scipio is going to do a lot better with the lessons of Hannibal's war tucked under his belt.

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Both Plutarch and Livy attest that Hannibal held Pyrrhus as, at the very least, a great general. At best, he considered Phyrrhus to be the second greatest general. Certainly, he was aware of Phyrrus's victories over Rome, and the eventual victory of Roman strategic stamina over dramatic tactical victories.

With even more certainty, Hannibal must have been aware of how Rome out-resourced Carthage in the First Punic War: constant building, then rebuilding, massive fleets of warships. This was something Carthage struggled to do. Although details on the First Punic War are harder to come by than the Second, it is well established that the Roman Navy built it self, and rebuilt it self, at least twice. This is a strong indicator of economic strategic stamina and an institutional culture of "not giving up."

Given the available facts, it is not asking too much of Hannibal to have learned the very important lesson of Rome's strategic stamina, and the will of its people (which was similar to British refusal to "never surrender" in 1803-1805 and 1940-1941). And if he was not aware of this, he failed as a general.

This is not to say Hannibal was a bad general, or that he was not great: he was among the best generals in history. But he had his failings, and Scipio didn't learn his brilliant, big picture strategies such as using the Carthaginian Senate against him and economically draining Carthage by conquering Spain from Hannibal. Scipio is often underestimated because he fought Hannibal at great advantage. What many fail to understand (and I do not believe that you, Valentino, are among these people) is that Scipio only fought Hannibal at great advantage because he deliberately set things up that way in a broad, strategic sense. Just as the attack of Bulow's corps at Waterloo was a deliberate, six-hour flanking maneuver on the part of Wellington, Scipio deliberately drew Hannibal to Africa and forced him to fight before he was ready: Hannibal did not want to march to face Scipio as soon as he did, and he only did so at the Carthaginian' Senate's insistence because Scipio was ravaging the countryside (a fairly justified act given that Carthage broke the truce, in addition to being strategically sound).

It is said that a truly great general attains victory before the battle begins. Scipio certainly did this, not only winning the battle before the battle started, but arguably the war by forcing Hannibal into a tactically unfeasible position. An anecdote regarding Marius related in Goldsworthy's book about Roman Generals sums things up nicely:

During the Social War, Marius refused to give battle to his enemy, who taunted, "Come fight me Marius, if you are a great general!" To which Marius replied, "And if you are a great general, force me to fight even if I don't want to!"

Which is exactly what Scipio did.